He’s called The Russian Doll Killer: a serial killer who stalks single women, murders them in their homes, and leaves behind his calling card, a Russian nesting doll. The vics are stacking up and Detective Ernest Neville’s under pressure to catch RDK before he strikes again - and that’s when he hatches an ingenious plan. But when a Russian nesting doll shows up on his doorstep, will he be the cat or the mouse?
I’ve never read any Jeffery Deaver before but I’m definitely going to pick up more after this - Turning Point is an excellent crime short story! Looking back at it, the story itself isn’t that original an idea but the brilliance is in the execution of how Deaver tells it so that you never really have a strong grip on where the story’s going or how it’ll play out.
The bulk of the story is pretty good - we see Michael, this obnoxious man, go through his days, putting everyone he comes across down and behaving like a shitweasel, interspersed with scenes of Neville trying to figure out who the killer is - then we get the finale which was totally unpredictable; a reveal worthy of Agatha Christie!
Deaver spends maybe too long on Michael being a dickhead. I wouldn’t expect there to be much fat on a short story so I’m not sure what the point of the date night scene was given that all it did was underline what we already knew about Michael’s personality. That unnecessary padding is the only part of the story that I could’ve done without.
The rest of it though is really great. A tense, exciting, gripping, and cleverly constructed crime story from a writer who’s clearly a master. Turning Point is a highly entertaining, twisty read.
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